Tuesday, 27 July

Not so grand for Forward Wales
posted by David | 1320 BST |

Wales's newest political party has less than �1,000 in the bank, according to its latest accounts.

Forward Wales, which is led by the Wrexham AM John Marek, had just �958.71 in accounts published by the Electoral Commission this week.

The figures are for the first quarter of this year and do not cover the European elections in June. The party took something of a hammering at the polls, winning fewer votes than the British National Party, despite having former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies as its lead candidate.

During the first three months of this year, Forward Wales earned only �455 in subscriptions - and �150 in donations. Wales may be moving forward, but it seems this party is struggling to keep pace.

Plaid Cymru have also had a tough year at the ballot box and at the bank. The party lost �46,595 during a year when it suffered disappointing assembly election results.

Your comments:

Forward Wales really only stood in the bigger elections to get its name known. In reality, it is a local issues party, with its 'powerbase' being the Wrexham area. If you look at the council results for 10 June in the Wrexham wards where Forward Wales stood, they did very very well.
Andy Williams, Wales

Did very well? Hardly. John Marek won his seat with 6,500 votes, but Forward Wales could only get 2,000 votes a year later - and they didn't win any seats in the Wrexham constituency!
David Boothroyd, UK

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